Getting a degree involves more than paying a fee

When John Denham announced that he was working on a new "framework" for UK higher education in February 2008, he was explicit about the need to achieve it well in advance of the review of undergraduate fees. He didn't succeed in this, and neither has his successor. The two will be irretrievably tied together.

Hence the focus in the "framework" on its "consumer satisfaction" and "consumer information" elements. What has been described as the "food labelling" device is a good populist trick, and like many a populist trick it has a germ of rationality. It is right and proper that universities should have an interest in potential students understanding what they can expect and to what it might lead. But as Wes Streeting, president of the National Union of Students, suggests, the proposed route is full of risk.

The most obvious risk is about the validity and timeliness of the data: university marketing departments are unlikely to agree on common definitions or a neutral style of presentation. Expect a lot of data war.

The less obvious risk is about what the data might be seen to promise, but never can. You don't just purchase a degree, like you might a frozen meal or a car. You have to make it your own through putting in more than a fee. And when you want to use it, the world will have moved on.

The encouraging thing is that, by and large, students get this. Others – especially politicians, but also many employers – often don't. They underestimate the extent to which the contemporary higher education system is being formed, not just "consumed" by its participants. The moral panic over science, technology, engineering and maths courses and research needs to be read in this light.

As for other aspects of the framework, it seems Mandelson has laboured to produce a mouse. The 17 "proposals" include a mixture of the following elements: recognition of well-known strengths of the system – like our mature student participation; now common admonitions to change, especially in the direction of a more "flexible" system and one more sympathetic to "vocational" routes; uncritical acceptance of the status quo like "research concentration". The most radical single element is an endorsement of the use of "contextual data" in admissions. This is put mildly (and deniably): "we believe that this is a valid approach and hope that all universities will consider it." Crudely, the fees review has little – if any – room for manoeuvre and neither does the "framework."

• Sir David Watson is professor of higher education and co-director of the centre for higher education studies at the Institute of Education, University of London

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